Are mathematics absolutely true?
>>1413759
Yes. 1 will always be 1.
>>1413759
Yes
First before clueless humanities fags begin to shit their relativistic diarreah, that only apply to humanities because they are pseudosciences anyway, on real sciences.
>too late
It's a social construct. A mere spook
>>1413759
Define true
>>1413775
You spelled diarhea wrong, fuckwit. You opinion is also retarded and not true.
>>1413796
t. butthurt barista
What's wrong? Isn't grammar a social construct, you raging faggot. I think you're being judgemental and oppressive. Now get me a mocaccino.
>>1413759
>absolute truth
Friendly reminder that social studies faggots can't get their filthy hands on mathematics because frankly their drug-corroded brains can't even master the basics.
t. Stemlord
>>1413759
The mathematics of Faustian man is by its very nature untrue
>>1413832
Friendly reminder you are the stereotypical stem autist that makes the rest of us look bad.
Leave humanity friends alone, stay in your own fucking field.
>t. Engineering autist
What do you mean by absolutely true?
>>1413759
Nope
Not a single shred of truth can be found in mathematics
>>1413854
Ok I'll leave them alone, but just because a fellow engineer, that is a respectable human being, asked.
>>1413868
That feel when my architecture course partnered up for a project with a really well-respected engineering course from another uni and roughly 1/3 of the engineers' work had to be corrected by architecture students who according to engineer memes are "engineers who can't do math".
No, not unless you're a mathematical Platonist.
Why do stemfags think they have a special say in epistemological matters?
Basically it comes down to whether or not you agree that there is a logical dimension to the universe which human thought is capable of ascertaining, and which has the property of producing statements that are true.
That's a sort of Platonist look at it.
The arena of inquiry you're referring to, implicitly, is philosophy of mathematics.
>>1413909
Certain popular scientists have become very bad about giving this impression off, but I think there has in fact always been communication and mutual interest between philosophy, science and mathematics.
>>1413900
Many engineers are socially retarded that refuse to believe they can be ever be wrong or should be corrected by someone else. However, many are completely normal people.
>>1413909
Because of the "le anything but stem wont give you a job XDDDD where r my fries looser XDDD" meme. STEM is always in demand, so they assume it's the only way to get a job.
>humanitiesfags can't comprehend postulates
>>1413909
fookin rokets n shit m8 innit
It's worth mentioning that the human mind doesn't and can't form a full conception of fundamental mathematical concepts. This is obvious to all, but is important to remember when answering this question so if we say pi, we know it means the ratio of a circumference of a circle to thay circle's diameter. But we don't actually know it, because it's an irrational number.
With this in mind, any time pi is used to solve a problem, the answer is by definition not "absolutely true", at least in the human conception of the answer. For this reason the bulk of mathematics never touches absolute truth, but estimations.
That doesn't devalue it at all, but that's how it be.
>>1413972
AHAHAHAHAHAHA
>>1413817
Because you deserve to be oppressed, subhuman.
>>1413972
Interesting but I'm not sure I follow. I agree we don't know the "full conception" of mathematical objects, since I think that would mean knowing its meaning in all contexts simultaneously, or something like that (like, the Greeks knew 1 was 1 but they didn't know that if you add e^(i pi) to it you get zero, and surely there are infinitely many other neat facts about 1 we don't know.)
Irrationals are well defined (using Cauchy sequences or Dedekind cuts) and we may study their properties, same way as with rationals.
>>1413909
Engineering being treated as a science instead of glorified construction. Computer science is the same.
>>1413932
I agree, I know many of them. At least they were cool about being corrected and I actually experienced none of the meme attitudes in real life. They were quite excited to get strange shapes to work with, they saw it as a challenge. Many architects are truly insufferable hipster pricks, but many are normal people.
>>1414043
Aren't you confusing the rivalries of undergrads with the content of subjects?
>>1413759
what do you mean by absolutely true? if you mean logically irrefutable, then yes, because we make math to be so.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814029243
>>1413759
given the axioms, yes
>>1413759
Under the ZFC axioms mathematics is consistent but incomplete. An easy example can be found in the lack of a multiplicative inverse of 0.
In particular; for the operation of addition, we get a + b = c,
The additive inverse of c is the operation of subtraction, so we get c - b = a
And this holds true for all a, b and c.
Now we consider multiplication
a * b = c
c / b = a
This holds true for all a and c, but not if b = 0
Thus this is consistent, but incomplete.
>>1413972
A 5-year-old could pick this apart
>>1414869
That is not what incomplete means, at all. Like, not even in the correct ball park.
Daily reminder that most Mathematical reductions of things are irrelevant.
>>1414869
>this is so wrong I can't even
>>1413972
This has to be bait. No one would be this retarded unironically.
>>1413759
from a non-humancentric perspective, math does not exist
numbers do not exist in the universe
they exist as human concepts birthed from your imagination, aboriginals called it "dreamtime"
humans utilize abstract symbolic context-based concepts to formalize their intellectual attempt to systemize their limited perceptions of reality
>>1413759
Mathematics is essentially the study of systems of rules.
When a set of rules we're studying turns out to be useful in reality, we call it "applied math". When we search to find a set of rules that matches reality, we call it "physics". Otherwise, if we're just studying a set of rules not for a specific use, we call it "pure math".
So there are two sides to this answer.
The first is that given a set of rules, we can say for sure that other rules are true. So in that sense "mathematics is absolutely true".
What we don't know are that any of these rules actually correspond to things in reality. That is, mathematics doesn't trump physics. Mathematics can say "the angles of a triangle sum to half a circle", and it can seem true for a long time until we realize we don't live in euclidean space. In that case, we'll have to come up with other math to explain reality, and we might realize we were making unfounded assumptions in our math before (ie, realize we have to clarify that the triangle rule only applies if we use certain distance metrics).
Math isn't magic, you can't build systems of rules entirely in your head and start assuming things about reality by studying them. The ancient Greeks did that, and ended up making a lot of mistakes (the arc a thrown object takes through the air is piecewise linear, or that objects fall at a rate dependent on their weight).
On the other hand, it isn't disconnected from reality either. Our brains are made of reality. Making solid predictions about reality keeps you from dieing. The sets of rules we choose to study are based on what we observe in reality.
We could have studied computability and algorithmic complexity long before computers, but we didn't. We danced around the edges of the field many times, but it took actual computers to get us to really study it.
>>1418282
As a person who doesn't understand shit about math, i enjoyed reading your post
>>1414051
This. /sci/ is full of freshmen who want to show everyone their university/diploma/whatever is the best. It gets annoying after a while.
>>1414869
Go read a formal logic book RIGHT FUCKING NOW. And then discrete mathematics book because you obviously have now idea what group is.
it is absolutely true relative to what our consciousness is able to perceive.
>>1418282
good post
>>1413759
It's as true as we say it is along with most other things.
Mathematics is true if everyone agrees it is true.
That's what truth is, in essence.
>>1419245
>>1418347
>>1413781
>>1413779
FUCKING SOCIOLOGISTS
JUST GO AWAY
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>1413773
You can't prove that
>>1418282
>We could have studied computability and algorithmic complexity long before computers, but we didn't
Yes we did
>>1419312
salty stemfag who got btfo pls go
>>1419358
Hilbert's Entscheidungsproblem was 1928, and that's pretty much the start of computability, as far as I'm aware. Maybe a bit earlier, I'm not 100% confident.
That's well into electromechanical and mechanical computing, and right on the cusp of electronic computing.
You're probably right about algorithmic complexity though, I wouldn't be surprised if that started with efforts to compute pi. Researching it now, big O notation was introduced in 1894, so as least as early as that (which is still after the difference engine, electromechanical calculators, etc).
>>1419312
No, they're correct, it's just a social construct, like gravity. If you engage in enough dialectical physics you can jump out the window and fly. I encourage they try it.
>>1419533
>That's well into electromechanical and mechanical computing
Yes and no. There were mechanical calculators, but they were not computers. The difference between a calculator and a computer is that a computer is programmable. The development of computing theory is really a post ww2 phenomena.
Mathematics are a relation of ideas, yes, mathematical equations can be true.
>>1419546
It didn't exactly work out, but Babbage came up with the Analytical Engine in 1837, which would have been a programmable, general-purpose mechanical computer.
Regardless, it was still only in the 1920s-19302 that we really formalized computation. You can't say that's well in advance of computer technology. We were using modern notation for variables by 1637. 1637-1928 is a long time to go without asking "what variables can we actually compute" or "what equations can we evaluate as true or false".
>absolutely true
If you'd have said "is mathematics useful?" or "is mathematics explanatory?" I would agreed with you OP, but using "absolute truth" as a qualifier is a retarded thing to do no matter the subject.
>>1419352
You can't prove that you're a faggot either, but everyone knows it's true
Well, a mathematical proof is essentially finding a way to make your argument undeniable.
>>1419622
When is 2+2 not 4?
>>1419674
That comic really proves how autistic STEMfags are tbqh famalam.
>>1419677
When I don't count anything.
>>1419682
Last I've been to /sci/ they were fucking awful but the /phil/faggotry here is considerably worse.
>>1419677
In the group {0, 1, 2, 3}.
>>1419694
I said 2+2, not fucking groups you dishonest mong.
>>1413759
It's self defining formal logic
>Are mathematics absolutely true?
Yes, it is
>>1419707
It would have been better to say "in the integers mod 4" or something anyway.
>>1419712
Are you autistic?
>2
>plus
>fucking
>2
>equals
>4
When does that not happen? Is this the KD effect in action?
>>1419770
I'm equivocating on "plus". You can define addition over more than just the integers, real numbers, and complex numbers. In this case, the joke is that in the additive group of the integers mod 4, 2+2=0, not 4.
>>1419777
And the joke is I haven't done integers in 10 years so it flew over my head completely.
It's necessarily axiomatic but the axioms in question are pinned down formally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems
>>1419770
If you were counting in base 3. In base three 2+2=11
>>1419814
...fucking cretin.
>>1419815
No need to be rude lad. What I said was accurate.
>>1419819
Of course it was. It was also beside the point. If I was to say "what is x+y in base z" my point would still stand.
So, when is 2+2 not 4?
>>1419824
>So, when is 2+2 not 4?
When you're counting in base 3.
>>1413817
Grammar doesn't fucking matter, KIKE.
>>1419836
>I have 2$ in my left pocket and 2$ in my right pocket. I put the 2$ from my left pocket in my right and leave it there. Can I make it any clearer?
Can you make what any clearer?
>>1419840
Man, it's too early for me to fall for this b8
>>1419843
Too early in what?
>>1419851
Look lad, I haven' had much sleep last night, your mom's pussy kept me up and now I'm having a cup o'joe. I'll give more (You)s later
>>1419852
It's not my fault you aren't able to write coherent English because you were too busy fucking my mum last night to get any sleep.
>>1419856
I guess not.
>>1413759
I don't understand when people say axioms are just assumptuons. Aren't they more like necessary definitions? Definitions of absolutely true things (true in concept at least)?
>>1419674
>>1419682
>>1419689
But if you made a perfect duplicate of you, presumably a copy of your current adult self, and that duplicate has all of your memories then it will think it's the original you because...why wouldn't it? It would have 100% of your memories and qualia and wholeheartedly believe it's the original, just like you believe you're the original you right now. Trying to convince it that it's "the second one" would be about as successful as trying to convince you.
This is perfectly ironic since convincing someone they're a copy is non-falsifiable AND considering the fact that people who are not material rationalists have insight into the minds and essence of material rationalists, insight they're even less likely to consider than the possibility of being a copy.
STEMlords are a mess and a waste.
>>1420743
Are you retarded? The one that you see out the eyes of would be you.
>>1413759
Yeah, but its the bridge. It's not the whole picture so to speak.
Like if you have a theory, one would have to use math to bridge the gap to match the visual reality. Which makes it redundant really, but it acts as foundation of support for a lot of people.
>>1419682
I'm not much of a stemfag, but I think that comic just highlights that some philosophical problems are just kind of trumped up non-issues that could be solved with common sense. But common sense isn't a sound philosophical argument.
>>1420743
But it still wouldn't be the original. Its opinion has no bearing on the matter.
>>1420743
Wow, and people say STEMfags are autistic
>>1420943
If someone were to show you footage of a hypothetical original you agreeing to be copied followed by a documentary-like explanation of the copying process ending in the hypothetical real you standing next to you, would you believe it?
This premise deviates from the original question, by the way. Any exact copy would have the same memories as the original and would remember agreeing to be copied and literally everything that the original does, making this even more difficult than it already is. But for the sake of argument, would you believe it? And what empirical evidence could there be to prove that you are a copy?
>>1421035
>everything that the original does
I forgot to add: including believing that it IS the original, just like the original does.
